While armed with a rather large water gun at his official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., Vice President Joe Biden issued a warning to journalists attending a media picnic, The Blaze reported Monday.

“Anybody who writes a bad story about me is dead,” he said, grinning. “I just want you to know that, get this straight, we’re not gonna kid around about this.”

Then, the Daily Mail added, a "platoon" of similarly-armed children joined the vice president in soaking members of the press corps.

"The Vice President of the US just shot me with a super soaker," tweeted Associated Press White House reporter Josh Lederman.

"I am your grandfather, what are you doing," Biden is heard saying in the video.

While the incident was all in good fun, a number of people felt there was more to Biden's threat, judging from the comments left by readers. Many others felt the incident smacked of hypocrisy, given Biden's position on guns.

"If that was an elementary school student he would have been expelled," one person said at the Daily Mail. In some districts, he could easily have been arrested. As we have reported, one student was suspended for biting a pastry in the shape of a pistol, and a Philadelphia fifth-grader was called a "murderer" for having a piece of paper torn in the general shape of a gun.

"I wonder how many journalists are getting the double-meaning of Biden’s threat: go along with the administration, tow the line, and all is fine for you and your family. Do not, and it will go badly," another person said at The Blaze.

There may be something to that observation. As we reported in October 2011, Biden got rather testy with a reporter after falsely claiming that GOP opposition to Obama's Communist Party-backed jobs bill would cause an increase in rape and murders.

“What I said, let’s get it straight, guy, don’t screw around with me….I said rape is up three times in Flint. There are numbers, go look at the numbers. Murder’s up, rape is up and burglary’s up,” he pointedly told Human Events' Jason Mattera.

In March 2011, Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers found himself placed in a storage closet while trying to cover a fundraiser Biden was attending. As we reported at the time, Powers was placed in the closet by a "low-level staffer" who then stood guard outside the door. Perhaps, we noted at the time, the staffer thought Powers was a "barbarian" who needed to be kept "from the gates." Biden's office later apologized for the action.

Share this article

Joe Newby is an IT professional who has been involved in conservative politics for years. In 1991, he ran for City Council in Riverside, California, and has served as a campaign manager for local conservatives in California and Idaho, including former Idaho State Representative Jeff Alltus. For a year, he hosted a local access cable talk show that covered conservative politics. He attended the University of Arkansas, Community College at Batesville where he graduated summa cum laude in 2005. He currently lives in north Idaho with his bride of 24 years and can be reached at ljnewby@peoplepc.com.